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Wild & Precious

Jesse and Clover Burke

Photographer, Director

Wild & Precious brings together treasures from a series of road trips travelled over 5 years by photographer Jesse Burke and his daughter Clover. The collected documents; photographs, letters – as well as dirt, cuts and bruises along the way – draw us into a world unimaginably beautiful, and also intensely real. It’s a reminder that exploration is timeless, and infinite, as should be the wild. We were lucky enough to speak to both Jesse and Clover, and what their collective experience meant to each of them.

Congratulations to both of you on the beautiful book.

Can you introduce yourselves?

Jesse: Hi, I’m Jesse, an artist, dad, and nature nerd. Thank you, we are very excited to get this project and its messages out into the world.

Clover: Hello, I’m Clover. ☺

Where and when did this journey begin? Wherehave you travelled since?

Jesse: This journey really began the moment Clover was born. The moment I had my first child I knew that it was my responsibility to make her a loving and compassionate person. Isn’t that all we can hope for in our children? I used these journeys as an opportunity not only to bond with her but also as a means of instilling in her a deep and profound personal connection with the natural world. Our very first road trip was up through coastal Maine to Leubec, and the Eastern most point of the United States, and into the edge of Canada. In the subsequent years we traveled extensively to the Pacific Northwest, and the Western most point of the United States, the Arizona Sonoran Desert, throughout New England and New York State and all along the eastern seaboard.

Can you describe some of your thoughts, feelings and emotions leading up to the first road trip?

Jesse: As far as Wild & Precious is concerned, I didn’t know what I was doing when I embarked up on this journey for the first time. We were actually out on the road shooting for my previous work, Intertidal. Initially I thought we were going to just go and spend a week together, roaming around shooting landscape pictures. Very quickly I realized that was not the case. Clover was the priority; I just hadn’t realized it yet. It was the first road trip alone with my daughter. I was a little nervous because she was only 4 ½ and that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with me out on the trails or even in the car. I was a little scared that this might have been an epic failure from the onset. Truthfully, I had no idea what to expect, which was kind of terrifying.

It is a pure bonding experience and a rare opportunity that most people don’t get to have. It is time to talk, connect, and learn about each other and the world.

Clover: Leading up to our first road trip I don’t really remember too well, but I imagine I must’ve felt a little nervous to go in to the woods alone with daddy and scared to go on a trip without my mom. As I got older I would be happy and get excited to go with dad because it would be just us because it gave me “daddy time.”

What is life like on the road with your dad/daughter?

Jesse: Life on the road with my daughter is incredible. It is a pure bonding experience and a rare opportunity that most people don’t get to have. It is time to talk, connect, and learn about each other and the world. It is a time for us to plan a course to investigate and explore. It’s a time for us to be free spirits, roaming with no goals, except that of experiencing each other’s company and seeing things that we’ve never seen. I know that sounds a little romantic and idealistic but it’s true. We would start our day with no real plan and see where the road took us. Oftentimes the journey that we didn’t expect to take was the most magical one. Something we could never have dreamt up.

Clover: Life on the road with my dad was exciting because we never knew what we would see, and we are out in the woods and the streams for a long time. Sometimes it was cold, but still exciting. In the day we would go out, drive around, hike, and explore and at night we would sleep in cheap little motels. We listen to Johnny Cash and other playlist of fun songs and we would sing along to them together. We would stop somewhere and eat. I would usually eat sandwiches or French toast or pancakes.

How did the road trips affect how you thought of ‘home’?

Jesse: For me the biggest part of how I remembered home, or thought of home, while on the road was missing our other family members. Certainly it made me long for the others to join us on the adventures. But, I think we operate in a different way the minute we leave our house. We’re adventure seekers and we don’t think of home very often out on the road. Ultimately, we would talk to my wife and the other kids periodically throughout the trips and that would certainly make us miss their company but we were on it adventure and that was what was at the front of our minds.

Clover: The road trip affected my thoughts of home in ways such as, I missed my cats, my mom, and sleeping in my bed.

I was able to open my mind and expand my thinking about how I should create this work and work with this participant to make the project something that was ours and not just mine.

Were there moments where it felt hard or tiring? What kept you going?

Jesse: There were many moments where I felt tired and overwhelmed by what was happening. This was the first time I had ever worked with my child, or any child for that matter. Initially, I found the process incredibly frustrating, but once I was able to overcome that obstacle I was able see the project for what it really was; a collaboration. I was able to open my mind and expand my thinking about how I should create this work and work with this participant to make the project something that was ours and not just mine. The connection between us goes all the way down to the core of what we were doing, so the final outcome is a result of both of our hard work and tenacity.

Clover: Moments that were hard or tiring were moments like when daddy told me we could get out of the car to play but instead he had to take lots of pictures. Or when it was cold or raining and I was wet and had to pose or standstill for a long time. What kept me going in the hard moments was daddy promising me we can get a treat or an ice cream. Sometimes after taking a bunch of pictures we would get to swim and play together. Hiking is my favorite thing to do with my dad.

Jesse, what drives the need to give your kids access and knowledge to the wild?

Jesse: The goal of Wild & Precious is to encourage parents and children to spend time together connecting with the natural world, to experience the magic of discovering new landscapes and learning about new animals species. To encourage respect for nature and to nurture a deep understanding of environmental conservation and too illustrate every day opportunities for families to deepen relationships as a result of these simple and beautiful shared experiences, to unplug from the digital matrix, to get dirty and seek adventure. So having these experiences with my children is the key to unlocking all of that. Our adventures have nurtured a deep connection and passion between us. This then encourages a lifetime of compassion and respect.

What could you, whether or not you captured it in a photograph, never forget about the past five years?

Jesse: The past five years have been five of the most amazing years of my life. This project has allowed for an incredibly deep connection between my daughter and myself. One that I don’t think would ever have been possible otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, we spend a lot of time hiking locally and doing things together as a family, but when you spend five years with someone experiencing the things we done it is truly unforgettable. The magic of nature is so vividly clear and every memory I have from this trip. The bonding time spent together between my daughter and myself, watching her grow, mature and understand her place in the world has been a real gift. A lot has happened in this project that I could never have planned or even expected, many of those of the things that I will always remember.

What have you learned from your time in the wild?

Clover: My time in the wild has taught me so much. I have learned about nature and science. I’ve learned about the weather and how to dress. We learned about how people live and talk in different languages in different parts of the country. I’ve seen many animals: elk, moose, coyotes, foxes, birds, and others. We studied plants, trees, and flowers. I’ve learned to recognize things and to not be afraid. It taught me to try new things, be fearless courageous, and brave. It taught me to respect Mother Nature and treat it as a second home. I’m very thankful that my dad has taught me all these things and brought me on all these trips.

It seems to me that this is the golden age of amateur photography. How do professionals, that is those who are committed documentary, editorial, photojournalists, how do we go about telling stories that are convincing and compelling in a visually saturated environment?

National Geographic photographer Sam Abell has defined his career with patience. There is no dull section of a Sam Abell photograph, the frame is layered from back to front with compelling imagery. This can be a slow process, it can take days, weeks, or in some cases months for the right opportunity to present itself.

There were many rafts over the course of the four years and all were built with salvaged materials. The construction boom happening in NYC in the mid-2000s provided a lot of scrap material that we pulled from dumpsters.

I love the unexpected, uncontrollable moments that just happen. That’s why I suppose spontaneity is really the crux of the best art I’ve done. That, and I just really love the process of making things.

There are countless stories that tell of a young man, lost and uncertain, who sets out on a whirlwind adventure and figures out who he really is. It is a sad reality that amongst the great classic adventure stories, very few (if any) of the protagonists are female.

I perceive my photographic work through a director’s eyes, however, the difference in my vision, is that the whole world is a stage. It’s an intense sensation of “limitless”. I like to recreate a fantastic universe of dreams and travels.

Arriving back in Marrakech, I felt like I had truly been to outer space and back; I felt like I had seen landscapes that could not exist on our planet. I felt like I had stepped both back and out of time and had seen and briefly experienced a different way of living, of one without time and without fear.

Photography is a fiction. It’s a frame of a film which hasn’t been made, or a line from a forgotten poem. I always create in camera as much as possible, because it is also about the experience of what is in front of you at the time.

It’s surprising to see a lot of people’s living spaces of a certain age – what they surround themselves with and how they decorate their houses. They’re like living museums. It’s often an incredible level of chaos and madness that they live amongst

I use that same word when I talk about travel – luxury. It’s such a white man’s headache you know, like, it’s not hard. People say “How did you do that? That’s so hard.” And I think, “Well there are some cold days, some warm days, you know..” But it’s my own choice, and it’s a privilege entirely.

Porter Yates is a photographer, and Dan Melamid is a director. They have been friends for many years, and both share a passion for travel and visual storytelling. Through Witness.Earth they have collaborated to develop a new style of photographic presentation to music.

Thematically, (Katrin’s) work is concerned with ideas of Australian regional and remote communities in socio-economic transition in the 21st century; experientially, it is an exploration of photographer’s familiarity with her new home country.

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it… I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

My driving force is to discover places and creations that I personally find intriguing. As for what I’m trying to communicate to an audience, it is a more focused critical perspective, something that I will develop over time.

While cycling about in remote South Australia Tom was bitten on the neck by a reback spider and, after suffering through the night, made it to hospital the following day to be dosed up on two bags of anti-venom. Another time, while hiking Tasmania’s magnificent Overland Track through constant rainfall, a leech found its way quietly into his mouth.

At the age of 22, Larry Niehues packed his bags and headed to Mcallen in south Texas. Following the footsteps of Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston and Dennis Hopper, he embarked on his own great American road trip.

I struggle a little bit with my attraction to old things, but I like small towns and they are usually a little behind the times. At least landscapes are timeless. I can’t be accused of nostalgia when photographing nature.

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it. Creativity is tied to anything that makes you tick. In my case it is the outdoors.

Ittoqqortoormiit is one of the most insulated towns in the world. Far away from all touristic highways and only accessible by helicopter. Two supply ships a year, and if you forget to lodge a request you must wait six more months for this.

I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them.

Maybe in some of these places there has never been human presence, I access them with my kayak or by boat. Sometimes I’m lucky, and I go alone, sometimes I go with my groups. Either way I’m very lucky, I can see other worlds within this world. I’m very lucky to experience this.

We want to make people aware about how difficult the living and working conditions in certain parts of the world can be, the fact that not everybody was born into the bright side of life but also that travelling to far away places is possible – through photographs.

The Family Acid sounds something like an adult swim cartoon, but the truth is so much more awesome. They are in fact responsible for some of the most visually intriguing and detailed documentation of the counter cultural movement of the 1970’s on, out of the U.S and beyond.

That was a life changing time with two wonderful women and their amazing father who are dear friends of mine. They are sailors but it was a first for me to be out at sea for two weeks. The best way to explore any coast on a magic carpet ride!

It was an amazing, incredible sight to see hundreds of people on this beach. The horses went in first, four or five horses into the water, then the saints were immersed, and then everybody else went in after that to take the ritual bath.

I make an effort to let everyone I photograph know what I’m up to. I want them to understand where I am coming from. I think when they meet me they realise I’m not out to expose or judge them. Who am I to expose something or someone anyway?

This series is the first time I’ve ventured into photojournalism. The opportunity fell into place; I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wasn’t prepared for the evident increase in poaching and anti-poaching activity this time around, and that was a shock. It’s a strange series to reflect on.